Ten Days of May

My first ten days of May were spent on a road trip and tour out to the west. We traveled as far west as Calgary & Canmore, then traveled north to Grand Prairie, High Level & La Crete. Part of my duties as a faculty member at college is to direct a music team that leads worship in chapels & special events and as well some performance music. I am more "hands-on" as a musical director the first semester but purposely draw back from too much involvement which I believe interferes with the formation of such a group for the second semester. In other words, I want bands that I work with the create their own identity & sound once some strong roots and direction have been established. I was very pleased this year by both the stage presence, sound, and overall feel of the band this year. For this tour, we decided to combine our drama and music teams and create a dramatic performance that included musical interludes that contributed to the story being acted out.

A picture that captures the interplay of music and drama for our tour.

It was quite a powerful and real-world type of drama entitled "Rewind: Replay" and centered on the dating relationship of two adolescents who end up breaking up in the process of finding themselves. The audience is set-up to believe the boyfriend is at fault for the relationship failure in the initial scene. However the next scene rewinds to several days before and the audience is given a better understanding into the girlfriend and some significant challenges she is facing, along with some of her poor choices. The play did not have the classic tidied-up conclusion leaving the audience hanging, but the music performed throughout the drama sent out some clear messages as to where hope can be found in desperate situations. Ironically, it is the boyfriend's sister who reaches out to the ex-girlfriend in the end and the audience can only assume that the friendship will aid in the healing process.

I think this shot captures well the energy of a performance and is uniquely framed by our bass players arm.

I tried some more artsy stuff with my Pentax Optio and was pleased with the results. I still prefer my digital SLR but the point & shoot worked fine considering its size.

Another blurred over-exposed shot that just drips with color!

A neat aspect with touring with lights for the music/drama presentation is that I got to play with color, blur, & well you see the results - alarm red guitar in action!

One of the perks of the tour, other than furthered relationships with students, is to visit "the mountains" and although we didn't actually enter the park we did manage a hike in the mountains near Canmore. Here are some shots from the mtns, a few from a ranch we stayed at, and shots taken along the way:

Amazing mountain lake complete with a great cliff for rock-climbing.

We encountered a little snow on our hike but definitely t-shirt weather!

A shot of some cool trees near one of our gigs.

Okay admittedly, this goat is a little scarey looking but it was such a unique shot I couldn't resist posting it.

One of the cool parts of the trip was crossing the Peace River on a ferry near the La Crete area!

This shot just reminds of the blur of bridges on our epic drives across rivers in Alberta

I couldn't resist a parting shot of yours truly lit up by our travelling lights!